


hands under your t-shirt (know i think you're awesome, right?)

by nosecoffee



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Angst, Art Student Eurydice, College AU, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Instagram, Mild Sexual Content, Modern AU, Modern Era, Music Student Orpheus, Orpheus is a nude model, Persephone Throws Parties, Repetition, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Sonnets, The Gods Are Professors, Unreliable Narrator, because I said so, reference to Greek mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-03 17:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15823941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (i'll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies)*The first time she sees him, they're nineteen and he's standing in the middle of the classroom, naked.





	hands under your t-shirt (know i think you're awesome, right?)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Homemade Dynamite" by Lorde
> 
> Look, I've done some weird things. I read War & Peace twice and wrote fanfiction about it. I procrastinated writing an essay on Lord of the Flies by writing fanfiction about it. I wrote 56 fics about the Founding Fathers of America. And some of them weren't that shit.
> 
> But this if the first time I get to say I literally wrote fanfiction about Greek gods, based on fanfiction of Greek mythology. Guess I can tick that off my bucket list.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy.

The first time she sees him, they're nineteen and he's standing in the middle of the classroom, naked. Eurydice stops dead in the doorway, completely taken by him.   
  
She's late to class - having missed the bus and had to run from her dorm to the other side of campus - so it's shouldn't surprise her that everything's already gotten started and the still-life model for her early morning art class is already naked, but she still stops.   
  
He's completely still; posed with his feet shoulder width apart, left hand rested lazily on his hip, right hand hanging loosely by his side, head cocked slightly to the right, eyes closed. He doesn't see her staring.   
  
Eurydice chides herself as she rips her eyes from his smooth, tan skin, and hurries to her empty seat. Since when was she so impolite? As she's setting up, the model changes poses, her eyes following his fluid movement despite her efforts not to get distracted. But it's hard, because he still has his eyes closed, and there's a lock of hair hanging down, loosely, on his forehead, and he's arched his back just a bit-   
  
He opens his eyes, and he's staring right at her. His eyes are grey. Nope,  _ nope _ .   
  
Eurydice looks away, quickly, takes a deep breath, and gets out her charcoal, trying to stay focused and serene, and ignores the flush in her cheeks, and how it itches down her neck.   
  
And that's how she spends the class. She uses up quite a bit of paper, trying to get him right, and never being satisfied, becoming frustrated when the lines she leaves on the paper don't  _ quite _ do him justice. By the end of the class, her fingers ache, and are smeared black from her charcoal. Her pages are messes of half-finished sketches, and angry scribbles.   
  
Her teacher thanks the model, calls him Phe, ruffles his hair affectionately, and dismisses them all. Eurydice mutters to herself, frustratedly as she packs up, stuffing her materials in her bag with force and disdain. There are footsteps. She looks up.   
  
A lot of her classmates have already filtered out of the room, but the person standing in front of her is the still-life model.  _ Phe _ . He's quite a bit more dressed, now, wearing grey jeans and a white t-shirt, holding red converse in his hand, and holding his other out in greeting.   
  
"Hi," he says, and his voice is not as deep as Eurydice expects. "I'm Orpheus."   
  
Orpheus. Why bother shortening that?  _ Orpheus _ .   
  
He bites his lip, a bit, and it comes away red, flushed with blood. "You weren't here at the start of the class, we weren't introduced." Orpheus clarifies.   
  
"Right." She says. She takes a second and the realises she never took his hand, so she stands up from her crouch and shakes his hand, wincing as she smears some charcoal on his skin. "Eurydice."   
  
He blinks a bit, and they part. "That's a great name. Is that with a Y?"   
  
"E-U, actually." She informs him, and sees how his shoulders roll back under the stretched material of his shirt. "You won't believe how often it gets misspelled and mispronounced."   
  
"Oh, I would." Orpheus replies, lightly. “I promise I'm not usually a nude model, but I'm doing a favour for my Aunt Mel. She's your teacher.”

“Melpomene’s your aunt?”

“Yep, but no one actually calls her  _ Melpomene.  _ I kinda owed her from a while back.” He glances down at his hand and sees the smudges she left. "You use charcoal?"   
  
She nods. "Usually, I'm pretty good at it, but today was  _ not _ my best work." It’s not something she’d usually admit, but she’s kind of upset that nothing worked.   
  
"Not quite inspiring enough, am I?" He questions, playfully, wiggling his eyebrows and sitting down in the empty seat beside her.   
  
"Plenty inspiring.” Eurydice says, waving a dismissive hand. “I just kept trying to get you  _ right _ , and I kept getting you  _ wrong _ ."   
  
Orpheus looks up from where he’s pulling up a green and blue striped sock. He pushes his tongue into his cheek. "It's not supposed to be perfect, is it?" He asks, tentatively. She wonders if he thinks she’s really upset, like teary upset. She doesn’t want him to think she’s that girl who gets upset whenever things don’t go right.   
  
"No.” She agrees, and gives him a look that hopefully clearly reads that she’s fucking serene, thanks very much. Something occurs to her. “But you'd look best perfectly drawn."   
  
Orpheus lets out a choked laugh and his cheeks go a bit pink. He ducks his head and pulls on his shoe. "I'm flattered." He mumbles.   
  
"Don't be.” Eurydice diving into the snark she so easily taps into, closing her workbook and slipping it into her bag. “I sweet-talk all the models."   
  
Orpheus scoffs, as if he doesn’t believe it, playing into her snark. "What are you doing after this?" He asks her, grinning.   
  
"Modern History in an hour, work after that. Then English Lit." She replies.   
  
He tightens the laces on his left shoe and says, "Come home with me."   
  
Eurydice can’t help but laugh. "Bold, aren't you?" She says, and wonders why she finds him so oddly charming.   
  
"I have reason to be." Orpheus tells her, haughtily.   
  
"Oh yeah?" He reaches up and pushes the lock of hair hanging over his forehead away, the smudge of charcoal on the back of his hand stark against his skin. Her eye is caught by it. She wonders how those smudges would look on his jaw, his collarbone, his hips-

She cuts herself off before she goes too far. Orpheus gestures for her to lean in, and she does.   
  
"Yeah.” He murmurs, smirking, almost like he’s telling a secret that he wants to be spread around. “You wanna get me perfect."   
  
"That doesn't mean I want to sleep with you." Eurydice sniffs as she leans out of their private space in the chasm between their two chairs.   
  
"Who said anything about sleeping with me?” He asks, acting scandalised, hand to his heart. “No, I want to write you a song."   
  
"Oh, you're a writer, are you?" Somehow, that surprises her. In her head, the writers are the more rumpled looking ones. The ones with deep bags under their eyes, ink under their fingernails, pencils behind their ears. Orpheus doesn’t fit that image in her head.   
  
"Poet, writer, dreamer. Call me what you will.” He shrugs, uncaring, and Eurydice is further confused. How can he not care what she thinks of him? How can he brush it off so easily? “But I think you're the muse I've been looking for."   
  
"Muse, huh?” No one’s ever called her that before. It seems so out of place in this modern word, so disparate to the rest of his vocabulary. Eurydice swallows, though she is somewhat amused by his sincerity. “A bit early for a title like that, don't you think?"   
  
"I've already written you a hundred sonnets in my head." Orpheus says, matter of fact.   
  
"You're pretty insistent." She says to him, getting to her feet and swinging her backpack over one shoulder.   
  
His smile dims a little. "I'll stop, if you want me to."   
  
It’s the honesty in his tone that causes her to say, "Don't.” They both seem taken aback by her suddenness. She shuffles on the spot, and then looks up. “Will I see you on Thursday?"   
  
"Yes.” Orpheus says, the strap of his messenger bag resting on one of his shoulders, his fist wrapped around it, lower down. “I'll be here for the next few classes."   
  
"Write me a few sonnets between then and now.” Eurydice says, and they begin to walk, together, towards the classroom door. “I'll try and get you perfect, and we can swap."   
  
Orpheus smiles at this request and nods. "Sounds like a plan, Eurydice."They stop once they’ve exited the classroom, almost as if sensing that they’re going their separate ways.   
  
"I'll see you next Thursday, Orpheus." And she walks right and he walks left. She restrains herself enough to not look back at him.

(She doesn’t see him look over his shoulder at her, and maybe that’s best.)   
  
~   
  
She doodles him on the back of a receipt at work. One of her coworkers bumps her elbow into Eurydice's ribs and asks who he is. Eurydice just shrugs. At least she drew him with clothes on.   
  
She pockets the doodle, because it's better than any of the sketches in class.   
  
(Maybe drawing him when he thinks he's unobserved, dressed with his shoes in his hand, easy smile on his face is easier for her because she, herself, is not being observed.)   
  
~   
  
She arrives early to her Thursday class, and he's already sitting there, his jeans and shoes kicked off, hair rumpled and messy, scrolling through Instagram on his phone. Orpheus looks up when she enters. There's only two other people in the room, one with earphones in, the other setting up their paints.   
  
Orpheus smiles and makes room for her on the block in the middle of the room, beside him. "Got a drawing for me?" He asks, smiling so wide his eyes crinkle.   
  
Eurydice rummages through her bag and pulls the receipt out from between the pages of her English Lit reading. Orpheus looks at it with interest when she hands it to him, and then flips it over.   
  
"Starbucks, huh?" And of course that's what he decides to comment on. Eurydice scoffs and rolls her eyes, but she's grinning. He wets his lips with his tongue and then smiles. “It's really nice, Eurydice.”

“I didn't have a lot of time, what with classes and work and stuff, so this is kind do the best I could do with the time I had.”

“I'm not complaining.” Orpheus shrugs and pulls his own bag over to him, pulling out a spiral bound notebook, and ripping three or four pages out. They're written in led pencil, bits are crossed out, and there are traces of eraser marks, but his cursive is beautiful. She almost forgets to read them.   
  
"You  _ actually _ wrote me sonnets." She says, almost startled. She doesn't read them, just clutches them, lightly, between her thumb and the tips of the rest of her fingers, and looks up to meet his nervous gaze.   
  
"Like I said; you're my muse." He explains, every line and curve and blemish on his face earnest.   
  
She flushes once more, deep in her cheeks and down her neck. She wonders if he notices - wonders if the other students in the classroom notice. "You don't even know my last name." Eurydice says, drawing away from him, standing.   
  
Orpheus looks a bit flattened at her movement, but continues on, anyway. "I don't have to." He says, running a hand through his already unruly hair. Eurydice wants to wind her fingers through those curls, twist them around her fingers, tug them with her fingers, just to find out what sound he'd make. "If you tell me, I'll know you better, but even without, you're inspiring to me."

“Eurydice Naiad.” She says, and he smiles, holding out a hand for her to shake, as if they're only just now becoming acquainted. Oh, and his smile, it’s as bright and as blinding as the sun coming out, suddenly, from behind a cloud.

“Orpheus Thrace.” He replies, shaking firmly, twice, before releasing her.

"I have no idea what to make of you." She tells him, honestly, the intrigue and veiled fear leaking out, unbidden, in her tone. Not fear of him, no, he hasn't given her a reason to fear him. Fear of what this could lead to. Fear of how it could end.   
  
"Make of me what you will." Orpheus says, and he smiles, again, careless with the feelings he puts out on display, the optimism he hands out so generously. He gives her a look like he'd write her a thousand sonnets just to see her smile. "I'm yours for the taking."   
  
~   
  
Eurydice tries not to spend too much time, that class, just staring at him. He has a sheet, this time, posing with it, strategically, as if everyone in the room hadn't seen everything the last time.   
  
It's easier to draw him, this time, and Eurydice can't find a reason for it. Sure, there are variables that have changed, but she can't comprehend why befriending him and adding a prop or two has made Orpheus that much easier to capture on paper. Eurydice is unsure why he's so much easier to immortalise.   
  
She packs up slowly at the end of class, and waits for him to come to her, not sure if she can really cross the floor to him. Orpheus seems to understand, so as soon as he's dressed, shoes and socks in hand, he comes to sit beside her.   
  
"Let’s have a look." He says, peering at her pages. His mouth is quirked up when he leans in, but as he scans the sketches the quirk disappears and he's left almost gaping. Eurydice watches him with apprehension.   
  
There's a long moment of silence, the corner of the page caught between his thumb and forefinger.   
  
"Is this really how you see me?"   
  
Every line is drawn more softly than Eurydice usually draws them. She's usually so sharp and unforgiving with the charcoal, usually so sure. Orpheus, the way he looks, and who he is makes her unsure, and so these drawings are so much more detailed and careful.   
  
In some his eyes are closed, lips parted, slightly, and in others they're open, never looking right at the viewer. Some are just from the shoulders up, some are just fragments of a moment; a hand in his hair, a knee poking out from the side of the sheet, his mouth and nose when he raised his face to the ceiling, highlighting the light freckles on his face.   
  
Eurydice watches him draw back, and he wets his lips with his tongue, continuing to look even as he moves away. "I don't know why it was... _ better _ this time. But it was."   
  
Orpheus finally meets her eyes, and she's startled by the affection in them. "You're very talented." He tells her.   
  
It's too tender a moment. She can't  _ actually _ be sitting this close to him, giving him so much attention, drawing with so much detail, after knowing him a matter of days. It's silly, she's stupid, she's obviously got a crush on this wildly handsome guy who wrote her a few sonnets and stood naked in front of her for a few hours.   
  
She shoves his shoulder to break the moment and snort. "You're just saying that because they're of you." Eurydice accuses, and the affection in his eyes is replaced by amusement.   
  
"And maybe you'll say the same when you read my sonnets.” He suggests, smugly, and Eurydice snorts, again, closing her book and shoving it in her bag.   
  
"I'm not a narcissist." She informs him, faux-stiffly.   
  
"Neither am I,” Orpheus replies, lightly, “and I  _ still _ say you're talented."   
  
She huffs, getting to her feet. "Maybe you're just a good reference." Eurydice suggests, almost to get a rise out of him.   
  
"Maybe I am, but either way those are really good.” Orpheus shrugs it off, nonchalant, and swings his messenger bag over his shoulder, following her to the door. He stops her though, the tips of his finger to her elbow. His face is deadly serious for a moment. “ _ You're _ really good, Eurydice."   
  
Eurydice looks at him, unsure how to reciprocate. She kind of wants to kiss him. She's  _ not _ that kind of girl. "Thanks." She says, smiling, instead, and they part, once more.   
  
~   
  
She finds his Instagram (@poet_pride) when she's taking her lunch break, the next day, and it's full of videos of him from the nose down, singing with an acoustic guitar. Some of them are covers, and others original songs he’s written. There's a few professional looking shots, one from what looks like an open mic night at a bar, and another of him standing against a graffitied brick wall, acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, foot out to brace himself against the wall, looking to the right of the camera.   
  
There's one video, a pretty candid one, of him busking outside a shopping mall, some kids dancing in front of his guitar case. In the caption he thanks  _ @free_as_a_honeybee _ for the video and their generosity in helping him back to his feet. The video is dated a year earlier.   
  
Eurydice likes his most recent post and follows him, wondering how down on his luck he had been, and why he still acts so carefree, despite what must have weighed on him. She posts a few of her sketches, captioning them vaguely on the subject of art class and how stained her fingers are by the charcoal.   


Most of her posts are of her art, although there's a few from her high school graduation, and a few selfies she took with half her face obscured and Snapchat flower crown filters on. Not quite the aesthetic Orpheus sets up with his singer-songwriter vibe and professional photo shoots, but it's not like she has access to that kind of stuff.

Whatever, it's not like her to fuss over something like an Instagram page for a boy whose dick she saw before she knew his name.

She gets the notification that he followed her back and liked the post two and a half hours later.   
  
~   
  
"Who are they?" Eurydice looks up and scowls. Hermes is grinning at her in that knowing way that drives her so fucking nuts.   
  
She rolls her eyes and snaps her book shut. He's not likely to let her get any work done when he's set on figuring her out, like this. "Who is who?" She asks, all innocently, trying to put him off the scent.   
  
Bad move - his grin widens, as if he expected her to play all dumb on this. Knowing Hermes, that doesn't surprise her. "Whoever you're thinking about, whoever's distracting you." He waves a dismissive hand and then sits back in his chair, arms folded over his chest, triumphantly.   
  
"No one’s distracting me; I'm doing coursework." Eurydice drawls, waving her closed English Lit book around before placing it back in her lap. Her legs are crossed, even though she's sitting in one of his nice office chairs. The jeans she's wearing have rips in the knees, and her black converse are splattered with mud from earlier in the morning. He'd moaned at her tracking dirt into his carpet when she'd entered his office about an hour ago.

It makes her wonder how long he's been waiting to ask her.   
  
"It's weird that you hang out here." Hermes comments, opening his laptop and cracking a few of his knuckles.   
  
"It's weird that you  _ let me _ hang out here." Eurydice counters, absently, opening her book again. They've been friends since long before she was in college, and now that he's one of her professors it's a little more weird than foster family barbecues, but there's nothing she can do about it.   
  
There's a long silence as Hermes pretends to work on a lesson plan, and Eurydice pretends to do her English Lit reading, until he finally sighs and leans forward, elbows bracing on the desktop. "What's their name? At least tell me their name.” He pleads, blinking at her with wide puppy dog eyes that she learned to evade years ago.   
  
"Why should I tell you?" Eurydice counters, wondering if he's just spying on her for her foster mother. Far be it for her to keep snooping on Eurydice now that she's out on her own, trekking through college like a fucking safari.   
  
Hermes sits up straight, triumphantly grinning and pointing at her. "So you admit there is someone!" He cries.   
  
"I'm not admitting a fucking thing." She growls, rolling her eyes. He's an excitable one, for sure. She's always known that. Even when he was in his late teens and she was halfway on her way to ten, she knew he'd always be a goofball, a kid trapped inside of an adult. Now she's almost twenty and he's beginning to grey. How things have changed.   
  
"Hey, I'm still a professor." Hermes points to his name plate, citing him as, professionally, a professor.   
  
"Yeah, you have a PhD in sucking my dick." Eurydice teases and it's his turn to roll his eyes, ever since she discovered swearing she's sworn almost exclusively around him, knowing how he disapproves.

“Are you done?” He asks.

She laughs, “ _ Shit _ , almost.”   
  
Hermes whines, "What's their name? C'mon, tell me all about them.” She wonders if maybe he wants her to have someone because he doesn't. She'd  _ hate _ for that to be true. “What's it the kids are saying these days? Spill the tea?"   
  
"God,  _ stop _ .” She almost flings her book at him, laughing. “If I tell you will you stop?"   
  
"Absolutely." Hermes says, and then leans forward, looking like an excited little kid.   
  
Eurydice takes a deep breath and works up the nerve. "Orpheus." She says. “His name is Orpheus.”   
  
Immediately, Hermes’s face falls. "Oh." He says.

“What?” She says, furrowing her eyebrows. “Do you know him? Does  _ everyone _ know him?”

“Naw. I mean, I knew his parents, before they…” He trails off, suddenly, looking sad, and Eurydice gets the awful feeling that  _ that’s _ how down on his luck Orpheus had been. She doesn’t quite know what it’s like to lose one’s parents, but she knows that a long time ago she lost hers. Hermes clears his throat and continues, “And I'm all buddy-buddy with Seph, and he's her protégée.”

“Seph?” Eurydice inquires, quirking an eyebrow.

“Persephone. Botany professor.” Hermes explains, and waves a dismissive hand. Eurydice didn’t know Orpheus liked botany enough to be the botany professors protégée. She didn’t know he liked botany, period. “She found him sleeping out near the dumpsters outside her building one time and helped him get back on his feet.” He shakes his head and sighs. “Poor kid lost everything but his dang guitar. Seph’s husband, the Architecture professor - they met here when they both started working here and fell in love - don't like him too much, but she's soft on him.”

“So, you know him pretty well, then?” Eurydice asks, almost eagerly, and curses herself when she sees Hermes notice that.

“I guess you could say that.” Hermes allows, a knowing grin on his face. It drops back into a wobbly line, though, forehead creasing. “Bit of a heartbreaker, that one.”

“Oh yeah?” She says, despite herself. She supposes she’d known, he had that look about him.

“Yeah. Kids fall head over heels for him, like tumbleweeds, I swear. He's pretty and sweet and writes ‘em poems and stuff. I don’t even think he means to break their hearts, but he does, once he moves onto charming someone else.” Eurydice swallows this information, no matter how sour it tastes. “If he’s paying  _ you _ attention, I  _ guarantee _ he’s breaking someone’s heart, meanwhile.” Hermes informs her, and she instantly feels sorry for whoever was in her position, last. “Hope you know better than to fall for someone just because they compliment you.”

“How many poems does he write them?” Eurydice finds herself asking, even though she’s already hoping Hermes doesn’t know. Orpheus won’t break her heart, she’ll make sure of it. She’s more sensible than that.

“One or two?” He shakes his head, rolling his eyes. Eurydice wets her dry lips, heart beating a little faster, the  _ traitor _ . “I dunno, the kid’s prolific, and he doesn't seem to see that people are tripping over themselves to love him.”

She picks up her bag and digs through it for a moment before emerging, triumphantly with the sonnets. “He wrote me seven.” She declares, dropping them on his desk.

Hermes’s eyes practically bulge out their sockets as he gazes down at the folded notebook paper. “Oh,  _ fuck _ .” Hermes  _ never _ swears.

Eurydice grins, victoriously, although she’s not sure how exactly she’s victorious. “That makes me special, does it?” She questions.

He leans back in his office chair massaging his temples. “I suppose it does.” He admits, reluctantly. So much for warning her off him.

~

Eurydice takes the time to read them after that. She's hidden in one of the upper levels in the library, in a study room, and she pulls out the crumpled pages again.

The first few are just about first impressions; what he thought when he first saw her, the charcoal smudges she left on his hand, the fact that she didn't look back at him when they parted ways. There's one about how she would look with flowers in her hair, threaded through the laces in her boots and between her fingers.

In every single sonnet, he spells her name wrong. Eurydice doesn't even care.

~

She leaves them stuffed between her Modern History notebook and her English Lit reading, in her bag, so when she sees him on Monday morning, they're still there, and she feels stupid. Why would she bring them to class like that? They're private.

There's Orpheus, actually wearing clothes, for once. He's wearing a white shirt again, under a denim jacket with the sleeves half rolled up. She can almost forgive him for the double denim by the way his eyes light up when he spots her.

She gives a little wave and gets to work.

Eurydice tries not to be so forgiving, this time, even if yielding had given her better results, last time. She strikes at the paper with intention, not wanting to stare too long at the buttons on his jacket, or else, she'll try and make them more than dark dots in her sketches. She can't let him change her. Not like that. Not even if it's sweet, not even if she likes it.

Not this.

What she gets is something garish. Something otherworldly. If the sketch on her page is Orpheus, it’s Orpheus with no guitar, no poems, no voice. It's Orpheus without his soul.

Eurydice decides she doesn't like it.

New page, try again. Fresh start. He's looking at her. She tries not to look back.

Orpheus slowly takes off his jacket and slings it over his shoulder, stylishly. He changes the way he holds it several times until its hanging, almost limply from his hand, almost completely on the ground, until he finally drops it. Next comes his shirt, slowly lifting, arms crossed over his chest, squeezing the hem between his thumbs and index fingers. His hip bones arch starkly out from the top of his blue jeans, and Eurydice shudders, turning back to her paper.

Watching him strip like this - slowly,  _ meaningfully _ \- it's too much. She attacks her paper with a ferocity, intending not to look at him again, but she notices when he drops the shirt beside his jacket, when he pops the button on his jeans, when he slowly peels it down his thighs.

And,  _ god _ , she's gone on him. Her charcoal snaps in her hand.

~

He's standing by her side at the end of class, staring, with her, at the numerous sketches.

“That's interesting.” Orpheus offers, sounding unsure of what to say when faced with the drawings. Eurydice mourns for what he thought of her artistic abilities, what he thought of  _ her _ .

“It's not right.” She grouses, feeling hopeless. What has he done to her? She’s not usually so bothered by what people think of her work, or even what she thinks. It’s usually so unimportant to her. Just a hobby that can carry her through this next part of her education. But he  _ makes _ her care, he’s making her change, whether she likes it or not, whether she tries or not.

“You don't like it?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed with concern. Concern for her sanity or herself?

Eurydice groans and holds the sketches in her hands with minimal gentleness. “It's not  _ you _ .” She explains, apparently willing to bare her soul to him after the lack of time they’re known each other.

“Was it meant to be?” Orpheus inquires, staring quite blatantly at a sketch with the face blurred out black like a dark stormcloud.

“That's why you're here, right?” She asks, snarkily, and then descends back into her dark mood, closing her book and attempting to shove it in her bag, behind her Modern history notebook. It doesn't fit.

“Sure.” He agrees, and sounds unsure. Perhaps she’s scaring him off. Probably best, honestly. Orpheus deserves someone who won’t turn on him as quickly as she did over something as stupid as this.

“Then yes. It was.” The notebook needs to come out to fit in her sketchbook. “But it's not  _ right _ .”

“Why don't you like it?” Orpheus asks, sounding utterly confused, as if the drawings hadn’t been almost grotesque in their apathy.

“I just don't.” Eurydice snaps and manages to tug the notebook, finally, from its place, wedged inside her bag. The sonnets slip from inside it and scatter over the floor. They both watch them flutter to the floor, and Eurydice sighs in her carelessness.

She drops to her knees to gather them up, and watches Orpheus do the same. He picks one up - the one where he talked about her not looking back at him. “Did you read them?” He asks, meekly, almost embarrassed. He doesn’t seem the type to be embarrassed over this. He hadn’t been when he gave them to her.

“I did.” Eurydice tells him, gathering them, crumpled as they are, and smoothing them on her thigh. “You spelt my name wrong.”

He winces, gathering up the sonnet where he likened her to the beauty of autumn, _ that beauty which too often goes uncelebrated _ . “Where?”

“Everywhere.” Eurydice admits, standing and taking the sonnets from his hands. She holds them to her chest.

“Oh.” And he looks so disappointed in himself, and there's so many feelings in her belly, her chest, her throat. When she feels herself dropping the sonnets once more, stepping over them to reach him, leaning forward, cupping Orpheus’s cheek, her thumb to his cheekbone, her lips ghosting his, it doesn't feel like  _ her _ . It's not something  _ she'd _ do.

No, Eurydice is smart, charming. She  _ flirts _ , yes, but she'd never kiss a guy without even knowing his last name.

Orpheus chases her lips when she leans back. Like what she gave him wasn't enough (she knows it wasn't), like he wants more, like he's acting on primal instinct. So, when he chases after her, she meets him halfway, lips already parted, kissing him with everything she's got, because she thinks Orpheus deserves to be kissed, even if he'll kick her out of bed the next morning.

Metaphorically, of course. She's not  _ that _ kind of girl.

He makes a little sound, and drops his bag, immediately wrapping one arm around her waist, the other cupping the back of her head. Kissing Orpheus is like jumping into a heated pool. It's warm and all encompassing. It's nothing and then everything at once. The hand on her back splays with the fingers spread wide, and she shivers.

And she pulls away. Orpheus still looks a little dazed a moment later. Dazed and delighted. Eurydice wonders if he's ever been kissed before. He lifts his hand to his lips and smiles. They're all red again, and there's smudges of charcoal on his cheek and chin, and a little trailing down his neck.

“I assume you don't mind.” He laughs, running a hand through his unruly curls.

She shakes her head, trying to shake out all the stray thoughts. “Not even a bit.” Eurydice agrees. She leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth, and then his cheek, and then his jaw, near his ear. Orpheus shudders.

“Come home with me.” He begs, and  _ oh,  _ he begs so prettily, how can she say no?

“Okay.” She says, and he  _ grins _ .

~

His apartment is one room. It's a big room, and there's a small bathroom off one side, and a kitchenette off the other, with a bed at one end and a TV and a couch at the other.

Eurydice isn't looking at those when she comes in, though. She’s looking at him, at Orpheus. She's dragging him by the edges of his denim jacket through the front door, dumping her bag by it with her shoes and towards the big bed she sees not far from there. Orpheus laughs at her enthusiasm, and Eurydice can't help laughing, either.

It's not like she's done any of this before. But Orpheus makes her feel bold and confident. Orpheus makes her feel like such a momentous step, such an occasion isn't as big as she anticipated, that it's as easy as breathing, as easy as kissing, as easy as pushing his jacket off his shoulder and pushing him to sit on the end of his bed and climbing onto his lap.

She pushes her hands up the front of his t-shirt, feeling his soft skin underneath, and already knowing what lies there, but still being excited to see it. That's another thing. Orpheus isn't new, but he is, and it shouldn't be exciting to see him like this, again, but it is.

She doesn’t want him to strip the way he did earlier, showing off and putting on a show. This time it’s private, and she wants her own version. If that means lingering with her palms flat to his ribs, as she kisses him, it’s what she’ll do.

He kisses her like he's drowning and she's rescuing him. He kisses her like he'll die if he stops, and he kisses passionately. When he tips onto his back and Eurydice is already kissing his collarbone, he shudders, again, fingertips hooking under the hem of the back of her crop top. He doesn't move them once they're there, almost like he's waiting for her to tell him it's okay.

Eurydice sits up and takes off her shirt, then gestures for him to do the same. Orpheus grins and kisses her immediately after he's shed the garment.

It goes like that, one piece of clothing after the other until they're both completely bare. They crawl up to the top of his bed and he settles between her thighs, and Eurydice digs her nails into the soft skin at his shoulders. She wonders if he'll write a sonnet about this. Maybe she wants him to, just so she’ll know what exactly makes him raise his eyes heavenward in that first moment. He looks like he's praying.

Maybe she wants a sonnet about her hair in his mouth, tickling his neck, a sonnet about their bellies pressing together as she arches her back, a sonnet about her fingernails scratching up the back of his head and into his hair and tugging like she’s wanted to for a while. A sonnet about the whine that rumbles from his throat when she tugs.

And it’s all well and good to let him have her like that, Eurydice’s legs spread wide and then draped over the backs of his thighs, but she’s sure there’s more to this. She’s sure that he’s _ just missing _ something, something  _ worth  _ writing a sonnet about.

So she pushes him by his chest, rolls them with her knees to the sides of his thighs, and ends up sitting on top of him, Orpheus laid back and spread out against the pillows and the sheets. Eurydice’s knees already ache with the way she’s perched but she can’t care. Not when Orpheus is looking at her like  _ that _ .

 

Like he’s  _ awed _ by her.

She left a streak of leftover charcoal down the middle of his chest, down to his abdomen where her hands are sitting, now. When she finally rolls her hips forward, Orpheus collapses into the sheets with a quiet moan, eyes closed, mouth slightly agape, mirroring the faces he’d pulled that first class. Eurydice wonders if he knew that was what he was doing.

If she was the type she’d call this slow, torturous pace, his hands flitting from her waist to her hips to her thighs - she’d call this moment, making love, but it’s cringeworthy that she even thought it. It's not making love. She doesn't know him, he doesn't know her.

It's fucking, it's sex, it's  _ not _ making love, because she's  _ not _ in love with him, and probably never will be. Every emotion she felt for him before now will be swept away as soon as they're done, and she can get on with her life.

But Eurydice can't take her eyes off him as the pace picks up, as he bucks his hips to meet her, as her thumbs slide over the softened skin of his belly, up to the sturdy bones of his ribs. His eyes are still closed, and his hands are resting above his head, occasionally twisting the pillow in his grasp.

Maybe it is more than that, she decides, maybe he's worth detail and doubt and soft lines. Maybe she wants to cover him head to toe in lines of charcoal to prove to herself what a masterpiece he truly is. Maybe she just wants to duck her head into the crevice between his neck and shoulder and hide there.

Maybe she does want to love him, Eurydice thinks as his eyes open and he jerks, violently, coming with something akin to a sob being torn from his throat. Maybe she's just waiting for him to let her.

~

When she wakes the next morning, there's a crick in her neck and her clothes lead like a trail of breadcrumbs from the front door to the bed. Orpheus is spread out, starfish-like, one arm curled around his head, on the other side of the bed, his back to her. There's scratch marks on his shoulders, angry pink lines standing out from his tanned, freckled shoulders.

He truly is summer's perfect child, this one. She feels bad for marking him up, almost like she chipped a marble statue, or drew a knife through a priceless painting. Orpheus deserves better, better than her. Someone who would care for him instead of claw at him.

Eurydice rolls away from him, sitting up with her legs swinging over the edge of the bed. The off-white sheet drapes over her thighs, and Eurydice hunches in on herself. She was wrong. Spending the night with him, screwing him until he ripped the bedsheets, pulling at his hair and streaking him with the remnants of charcoal on her fingertips did nothing to mute her feelings. It may have even solidified them.

She truly hates herself in that moment.

The bed creaks, there's a warm hand on the small of her back, thumb curling around her left hip, and then his kiss at her waist. There’s a riot starting up in her heart. Eurydice looks down and there he is, smiling up at her in the early morning light, eyes hooded with sleep, mouth sagging lazily. “You stayed.” He mumbles, rubbing his numb lips against her skin. He sounds almost surprised, as if every other person he’d ever been with, before, had left as soon as the afterglow washed away. 

She hopes they didn't. Orpheus deserves better than that.

“Yeah,” Eurydice whispers back. “Do you want coffee? I can go and get coffee.” She doesn’t even remember where his apartment is, campus wise, but she can make things up, pretty quickly, and Google maps hasn’t let her down before.

“No, no, stay.” Orpheus whines, like a child, the hand that had been stroking her hip wrapping around her, and holding her, firmly. “You’re so warm, right now, and I didn’t…” At this, he pauses. Didn’t _ what _ ? Eurydice reaches down to push her fingers through his thick hair. He leans into her hand, grey eyes looking up at her through the lashes. “Please, stay.”

Eurydice can do nothing but obey, climbing back under the sheets, resting half on top of him, half not. There are little pink marks lining the underside of his jaw that Eurydice remembers struggling to reach. She smiles to herself.

Waking up with Orpheus is sweeter than she anticipated. She was ready to succumb to her guilt. But he didn't let her. His hand traces up and down her side, soft and grazing like a feather. Eurydice presses the pads of her fingers into the skin just below his collarbone.

The way he looks down at her makes her shiver.

~

Needless to say she's late to work.

~

She's not sure what she's doing here. He told her that a friend of his was throwing a party - she'd asked him  _ why _ , and Orpheus had shrugged. “She likes throwing parties,  _ especially _ when it'll piss off her husband.” - and told her to meet him there at five.

And Eurydice, half in love with him, and a bit of an idiot, at that, decided to go. And now she's standing in front of a big house that looks like something out of  _ Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. _ She can't imagine what friend of his could afford a place like this.

There's already a lot of people in the house when she finally works up the nerve to enter the house. It's all upbeat folksy jazz, and people scattered over different chairs and couches throughout the house. They all have glasses of wine and champagne and others have bottles and cans of beer. But there are no red solo cups or pulsing bass music.

Eurydice wants to find Orpheus so she can either persuade him to leave with her or so she can stick to his side until the party ends.

A woman in a green dress with curly brown hair catches her eye and begins to move towards Eurydice, weaving in and out of groups of people. She’s holding a glass of pink bubbling champagne and grinning like a predator spotting and trapping its prey. Something about the woman in the green dress makes Eurydice want to run.

“Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met.” The woman says, and offers Eurydice her hand. “I’m Persephone. And you are?”

So  _ this _ is Persephone, the botany professor that took Orpheus under her wing and throws big parties to piss off her husband. She looks just a bit younger than Hermes, smooth brown skin wrinkling as she grins, wide. She seems too guarded and superficial to be the kind and open hearted woman Eurydice imagined when she heard of this profound figure in Orpheus’s life.

She meekly takes Persephone’s hand, warm in her own, and shakes. “Eurydice. Orpheus invited me.”

If possible, Persephone’s grin widens. “Did he? You must be that girl he’s been talking about so much.” She releases Eurydice’s hand and she immediately feels colder. “He sat in my office for hours, trying to write you the perfect sonnet. He must have written ten or so.”

_ Ten?  _ “He gave me seven.” Eurydice tells her, stiffly.

“Oh, how  _ wonderful _ .” She believes her, the older woman looks positively delighted. She loops her arm through Eurydice’s and begins to lead her into a different room. “Come; we need to get you a drink.”

“I’m actually alright, thanks.” Eurydice attempts to deflect, and tries to pull away, but Persephone’s grip on her is stronger than she anticipated.

“Nonsense, nonsense,” She laughs, and they arrive in what must usually eb a library. Seriously, a  _ library _ . There’s a large table in front of them. “Wine or spirits?’

“I’m not twenty-one, yet.” She mutters, inspecting the large spread and varieties of alcohol in front of her, tempting in their prohibition.

“Neither are half the people here, tonight.” She dismisses. Eurydice sees she’s the  _ cool mom  _ type and knows she won’t escape until she has a drink in hand. “So long as it stays controlled, I say why not let you drink?”

“Can I just have water?” Eurydice asks and Persephone smirks, relenting.

“Of course. But let me know if you want something a little stronger.” She winks and bumps their shoulders together, knowingly. “Between you and me, parties are a lot more fun with a little buzz.”

“Eurydice!” She turns, suddenly, and there’s Orpheus, red leather jacket, guitar slung over his shoulder, face alight with delight. He greets her with a kiss to her cheek, causing her to burn up with embarrassment. He next greets Persephone, much the same way, but Persephone smiles the whole time, no exasperation or embarrassment present in her features. “And Our Lady of the Upside Down. I see you’ve been acquainted.”

“I was just getting your little friend here a drink.” Persephone informs him, charmingly, looking at him almost adoringly, a sparkle in her eye. It’s clear Orpheus was once prey for her, and now that he’s caught Persephone’s going over exactly how to rip him apart. “No one can say I’m not a gracious host.”

“True.” Orpheus agrees, and takes Eurydice’s hand in his. The pink marks under his jaw have darkened and bruised, lightly. She sees the way Persephone catches sight of them and something in her eyes darkens. Still, she smiles, albeit sharper than before.

“So, can I expect a performance, tonight?” Persephone asks Orpheus, taking a calculated sip of wine. “I’d hate for my guests to go un-serenaded.”

Orpheus grins and squeezes Eurydice’s hand. “That’s why I brought my guitar.” Then he turns to look at Eurydice. “Would you help me? I’m afraid Persephone and her guests have heard enough of my singing for a lifetime.”

“ _ I’ve _ never heard you sing.” Eurydice tries to divert him.

“I could say the same to you.” He replies, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“You don’t want me to sing for you.” She informs him, mumbling a bit. “I don’t even have a song to sing.”

He shrugs, pulling his guitar around the right way, its neck caught in his fist. “So make one up.” He suggests. “I’m not as talented with words as you.” Eurydice says, and gives Persephone a look thats says  _ help.  _ The older woman sends her back a look that says  _ he does what he wants. _

“Try?” He pleads, and Eurydice curses herself for melting. He knows exactly to get what he wants from her, now. “For me?”

She huffs, but she’s smiling. “Alright, but you’ll owe me if I mess up.” She tells him, tapping him on the nose with the tip of her index finger.   
  
“I already look forward to making up that debt.” Orpheus tells her, kissing her cheek.

“ _ Orpheus _ .” His statement probably wouldn’t have been as bad if her tone hadn’t been scandalised.

“Sorry.” He says, smiling, bashfully, like he hadn’t fucked her within an inch of her life, the night before. “Just sing what you feel. I’ll follow long.”

He strums his guitar and the chatter quietens a bit, around them. Eurydice swallows. What on earth did she feel right now that wasn't too embarrassing to say?

“I was alone so long, I didn't even know that I was lonely.” The tune that comes out wobbles, but matches his strums, and Orpheus grins wide. Persephone watches on with an intrigued look on her face. The chatter dies completely, limited to a few stray whispers. “Out in the cold so long, I didn't even know that I was cold.”

The look on his face says  _ go on, I’ve got you,  _ the same look in his eyes from the night before, when he’d looked up from between her thighs, knees hooked over his shoulders. “Turn my collar to the wind…this is how it’s always been.” Eurydice shivers at his expression. “All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own.”

She has no idea where she’s going with this. People are watching them intently, and she realises she’s slowly started to circle him, and he’s spinning, just as slowly, to face her. “All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own. But now I wanna hold you, too.” He steps out from her circle, and nearly meets her lips, pulling away at the last second, strumming complicatedly.

_ Two can play at that game _ , she thinks, vaguely. “You take me in your arms, and suddenly there’s sunlight all around. Everything bright and warm, and shining like it never did before.” Eurydice grabs him by the collar of his white t-shirt, pulling him closer. The next line is softer, for his benefit. “And for a moment I forget…just how dark and cold it gets.”

She doesn’t know where this confidence of voicing her emotions, and innermost thoughts are coming from, just that it’s making him shine like the sun. “All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own.  _ All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own _ \- but now I wanna hold you, hold you close. I don’t wanna ever have to let you go.” Eurydice rounds him before he can spin to face him, wrapping her arms, loosely, around his neck, and propping her chin up on his shoulder, eyes closing as if they’re alone, in this moment, and not on display for all of Persephone’s hungry guests to critique. “Now I wanna hold you, hold you tight - I don’t wanna go back to the lonely life.”

They sway on the spot. She can’t help but wonder if he hears her, hears what she means.

She releases Orpheus and he spins to face her, seeing the nervous look on her face. “Say that you’ll hold me forever. Say that the wind won’t change on us. Say that we’ll stay with each other, and it will always be like this.” His face is open and affectionate.

So when she gestures to him, giving up the ghost on knowing what she’s doing, he smiles, softly, so softly, a private smile just for her, and leans in. “I’m gonna hold you forever,” he sings, and she blushes, itchy and hot. “The wind will never change on us. As long as we stay with each other, then it will always be like this.” Orpheus punctuates the end of the song with a final strum and a kiss.

Eurydice can’t even find it in her to be embarrassed. She just kisses him back, softly, and then pulls away. There’s applause and Persephone comes over to pat their shoulders and smile brightly at Eurydice.

“Where’ve you been hiding that?” He asks when Eurydice wraps an arm around his neck and presses their foreheads together.

“Under layers and layers of embarrassment.” She admits, and kisses him again, before pulling away, fully. “Now, you should sing for our hostess before she bursts.”

Persephone gives Eurydice a mildly grateful look, at this, and Eurydice nods at her, silently. It’s clear Persephone loves him.

“I’m gonna go get some water, don’t miss me too much.” She says, and takes her leave. Despite the audience they’d had in the library, there’s still groups of people scattered all over the house, and Eurydice still struggles to get a glass of water. She can hear him singing in the library.

What was she thinking, being that open with her feelings, and in front of total strangers, too? She wanders the house, taking in the decor. On one wall, Eurydice finds a picture of Persephone, dressed to the nines in a white dress with little white wildflowers threaded through her hair, standing beside a man in a dark suit, their arms looped together. The man in the photo is clearly her husband.

As she wanders up the stairs, she hears Persephone’s voice opposite Orpheus’s. It makes something seethe under her skin. She should ignore it. He’s not hers, no matter what he promised her when they were singing. That wasn’t real until he said it was. And she wasn’t ready to ask him if it was.

Upstairs there’s myriads of paintings of flowers and fruits and closed doors that Eurydice ignores. At the end of the hall is a giant painting of a pomegranate, cracked open and spilling seeds over the table it sits on it. To the painting’s right is a door with the door left ajar.

Inside is a man, sat hunched over a desk, lit only by a small lamp. The floorboards under her feet creak and she winces. The man turns, and his features clear from annoyance to something she can’t read when he sees her. He looks like an older, greying version of the man in Persephone’s wedding photo.

“Hello.” He greets, gently, his voice low enough to sound like gravel. Eurydice doesn’t know why that sends shivers running down her spine. “I’m afraid I’m not in a partying mood, right now.”

Eurydice sighs and runs her fingers along the doorway. “Neither am I.” She admits. The top button of his dress shirt is unbuttoned, and the sleeves rolled up. He’s working on something.

The room is decorated with blueprints and pictures of beautiful buildings and bridges.

Persephone’s husband cocks his head to the side. “Was that you I heard singing, downstairs?”

She winces. He heard that, huh? Instead of embarrassment, she plays coy. “Depends on whether you liked it or not.”

He smiles, almost like he’s surprised. “It was lovely.” He tells her, lowly. “Very raw.”

Eurydice feels a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. “Then I’m honoured to inform you that that  _ was _ me.” She gets the nerve to venture further into the room.

“My name is Hades,” and extends his hand to her. She takes it, and he lays his free hand on the back of hers. “And your name, please?”

Like a fool, she gives it to him.

~

It takes Orpheus another hour and a half to find her, and when he does, he’s a little more tipsy than he was when she last saw him. He enters the room with her name half said, but cuts off, abruptly, when he sees who she’s talking to. His expression goes flat and dark, and he looks nervously between them.

“Eurydice,” Orpheus says, and licks his lips, apprehensively, “I was looking for you.”

Eurydice looks from him to Hades, whose expression has also closed off. She remembers Hermes saying something about Hades not being fond of Orpheus. She gets to her feet. “Are we leaving?” She asks, and sees the way Hades’s expression flattens even further when he realises she is with Orpheus.

“Yeah. I’ll let you say goodbye, and meet you in the driveway.” And with that, he’s gone, running like the devil is nipping at his heels. She clears her throat, and moves towards the door.

“It was lovely meeting you.” She says to Hades, in farewell.

“That boy will break your heart.” Comes his gravelly response.

She turns on the spot, surprised at the bitterness in his tone. “Excuse me?” Eurydice asks, despite herself.

“It’s his way. He can’t help it.” Hades explains, staring at the floor. “He’s going to break your heart and leave you behind.”

“You’re wrong.” She hisses, hostile over this horrible prediction.

Hades nods and looks up at her, sadness on her behalf in his eyes, “We’ll see.”

~

Eurydice stays the night again, but they don't have sex. They strip down, fumbling, to their underwear, and he lets her seat herself on his lap, kissing him, biting his lip, stroking her thumb across his cheekbones, his jaw, his eyelids.

But it doesn't go any further than that. He's too tipsy and tired to let it go any further, and she has too much on her mind.

Orpheus doesn't ask her what she talked about with Hades, and Eurydice doesn't ask him what's going on between him and Persephone. He falls asleep quickly after they've laid down, but Eurydice is restless. She gets up and wanders the big room he lives in. There's not many personal touches, apart from some old volumes of poetry by different historical figures on one of his many, many bookshelves, and a picture on top of his dresser of a younger, gangly Orpheus sandwiched between a woman with seemingly endless freckles and wild curly black hair, and a brown haired man with deep blue eyes and one of the most gorgeous smiles ever.

They must be his parents. Eurydice can't help but wonder through the context clues she's been given, and the absence of them from conversation that they're dead.

The two people smiling in that photo don't look dead, at all, nothing about them is dead when with their son squished between them they look all too alive, and maybe that's what drives Eurydice back into bed, beside him.

She jostles Orpheus enough for him to stir, briefly from sleep and ask her what's wrong, she shoulders shaking. She can't tell him that she's crying because maybe he knows what it's like to be without someone, in this world, even if their situations are nowhere near the same. He holds her to his chest, and Eurydice cries herself to sleep.

The next morning, she leaves before he wakes up, because maybe if he doesn't think she was there at all, he won't ever ask her what was wrong.

~

At work she pretends she doesn't regret leaving him alone in that big bed of his. A few of her coworkers give her knowing looks, and she wonders how many of them knew people who were at Persephone’s party.

Eurydice takes her lunch break at Subway and listens to Fleetwood Mac through her big clunky headphones that Hermes gave her as a birthday present. It's only when she's back behind the counter waiting for the afternoon rush that her phone vibrates and she frowns, not knowing who would text her that she hadn't already spoken to today.

**(214) 096-####:** What are u doing rn?

Eurydice frowns at her phone. It's not a number registered in her phone.

**(214) 096-####:** This is Orpheus, btw

She snorts,  _ of course _ it is.

_ How did you get my number? _

**Orpheus:** I talked to your friend, the English prof, and he trusted me with it or something like that. He's a cool guy.

_ I'm at work, right now. _

**Orpheus:** Well, when you finish up, swing by the music department would you? I wanna see you

_ Won't you be in class, tomorrow? _

**Orpheus:** nope, you're getting a new model. I had three lessons, remember?

She sighs and shoves her phone in her pocket, serving the next person in line. She feels her phone buzz but doesn't reach for it until the rush dies down, twenty minutes later.

**Orpheus:** But if you want to draw me naked again, all you have to do is ask

_ I'll take a raincheck on that offer. Be round in about fifteen minutes? _

**Orpheus:** I'll be waiting.

~

When she arrives at the practice room he's in, he's playing the harp. He's  _ actually _ playing a harp, and playing it  _ really fucking well _ . His leather jacket is discarded by his messenger bag, on the floor, and the collar of his t-shirt is stretched so much that it almost hangs off his shoulder.

His eyes are closed again, damn him.

Eurydice wonders how many times he'll cause her to stop and stare in the doorway, just because he's doing something he's good at. Eventually she clears her throat and knocks lightly on the door and he cuts off, abruptly, his eyes opening. He looks dazed for a moment, and then he smiles, lazily, relaxed. “Eurydice.  _ Hey _ .”

She ventures into the room, closing the door behind her, and pulls up a seat, beside him. “I didn't know you could play the harp.” She tells him.

Orpheus shrugs, and runs a finger down one of the strings almost lovingly. “Yeah, string instruments are kind of my forte.” Eurydice gazes at him as he seems to get lost, staring at the instrument balance between his knees. “The harp, the guitar, a tiny bit of violin.”

“I can barely play the triangle.” Eurydice sighs, wishing she was as talented as him, at this kind of thing.

This appears to be the wrong thing to say when his expression changes, darkens, and he turns to her, looking almost hurt. “But you can draw -  _ effortlessly _ .” He reaches for her hand, and Eurydice gives it to him, numbly. “You're talented in a different area, that doesn't make you less than me.”

His thumb strokes along the back of her hand, as if he's trying to smudge her with charcoal the way she wants to do to him. She wonders if she'll ever tell him what a true and ever shifting masterpiece she thinks he is. “How did you learn?” Eurydice asks, instead, wanting to hear his history, learn all about him.

“My parents were both harp players, but my father was the best out of both of them. He taught me. My mother taught me principles in poetry and how to learn to love it, but my father fuelled my love for the musical arts.” He reminisces with respect and awe. “My shelves are filled with her books, given to me by her sisters, and my mind is full of his discipline.”

“They must have been really good teachers to have made you who you are today.” Eurydice says softly, gently squeezing his hand.

Orpheus squeezes her back, and smiles, sadly at her. “Love is the best fuel for creativity, my mother always said, and no one has ever been in love the way they were.” He says, and releases her hands.

“You miss them.” She observes, thinking of the freckled, curly haired woman and the blue eyed man with the beautiful smile. She wonders what they were like.

“Every single day.” He breathes.

“I'm sorry.”

A long pause. Eurydice fears she's ruined the moment by leading them into this conversation. Then he clears his throat and smiles at her. “What about your parents?” Orpheus asks. “Did they teach you to draw?”

“No. I never knew them, they died when I was very young.” She explains and upon seeing his face fall, again, rushes to add, “My foster mother encouraged me, and I guess my love for art grew from there.”

“Eurydice.” He says, quietly, his voice so full of emotion.

“Orpheus.” She replies, just as quietly.

“I want to know all about you.” Orpheus admits, biting his lips red, again, and he's got to know how distracting that is. He's got to know what that does to her concentration. “I've decided you're the best person I've ever met, and I don't want what we have to just be a fling, I want more than that.”

She's struck by what he's saying, all too suddenly. “So you want to be in an actual relationship.” It's not a question, but she still waits for him to confirm.

“Only if that's what you want. After all that stuff at Persephone’s party…” They both pause, unwilling to talk about all the things they didn't talk about before. Orpheus swallows and doesn't meet her eyes when he says, “You said you wanted me to hold you forever. Did you mean that?”

She takes a deep shaky breath, and nods. “...I did.”

“Do you want to stay with me?” And this is the bigger question, she can tell. This is the question he's wanted to ask since that moment in Persephone’s library whenshed released him and he'd spun to look at her, stars in his eyes.

“I do.” She tells him, honestly, and he leans in, pressing their foreheads together, eyes closed, looking so painfully pleased she could cry.

Orpheus breathes out, shakily. “Okay.” In her head, Eurydice’s spitefully throwing this conversation in Hades and Persephone’s faces, like  _ there, see? You're wrong. _ But she doesn't say that out loud. She kisses him before diving into her life story, instead, and Orpheus plays the harp while she talks.

~

Eurydice gave up all her shame and asked him about Persephone. Orpheus told her that he loved her as he used to love his mother, as a caregiver and a provider, and perhaps a good friend, but nothing else. To balance out the scale, she told him about her talk with Hades, how they'd talked about her apprehension about starting a relationship, how scared she was to fuck it up, accidentally, how she wasn't sure if Orpheus would want her that way too. Of course, she'd never told Hades his name, hence why he was so surprised when she left with Orpheus, later that night.

(Orpheus took her hands in his when she told him about how scared she was that she might ruin whatever they had, and promised her that unless she made them fugitives there wasn't really anything she could do to ruin it.)

Orpheus worked himself up to tell her how his parents died, only a year and a half earlier in a house fire that destroyed everything they ever owned. Orpheus only escaped the blaze because he was at a friend's house, and when he found out the next morning all he had left wa his guitar and the clothes on his back. Eurydice holds him tight through the story and through the tears that follow it.

She just holds him. She knows that's all she can give, and that's all he'll need from her, so long as she can hold him like this when he needs it.

After that, she brings the mood back up with goofy stories about her adventures with Hermes, from her childhood that Orpheus laughs too hard at.

They go back to his house once they're kicked out of the music building, hours later, having talked until their voices were hoarse.

And once they get back to his apartment, Orpheus orders pizza and they watch  _ Law and Order _ until it arrives. They joke, and laugh, and post bad selfies on each other's Instagram pages.

After the pizza, they brush their teeth - he just happens to have spare toothbrushes under the sink in his bathroom - and they crawl into bed.

(Maybe the next morning she says  _ fuck it  _ and skips class to sketch him, posed in bed and he wakes up in time to see her best work yet. And maybe, next, she finally streaks him all over with her charcoal smeared fingers, and he laughs because he'd kind of been thinking the same thing. Maybe he makes her breakfast and burns it just a bit because she distracts him by making up false facts about classical composers and he gets really heated about it.)

(Maybe Eurydice likes that better than the emotions just washing away.)

  
  


**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> If some of this felt like it was going to go down an angstier road, I promise there's a reason. It's because I meant for it to go down an angstier road and then I decided to let them be okay, instead. Weird, I know.
> 
> Anyway, if you liked this fic, please leave me a kudos, and tell me all about your favourite bits in the comments, because trust me, I want to know. Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee. I make posts about Hadestown and how excited I am for the new Hozier album. Thank for reading, I hope you enjoyed.


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